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| Photo by Carl Attard |
'So, what are you grateful for?' he asked, as we stretch out in bed after meditating, fresh from metta.
'Well... I am grateful for you, this bed, this house, the safety we experience on this street... and then my list would continue, including various people, items, experiences, qualities until I feel satisfied with my daily quota. 'What about you?'
It is the same conversation we have practically every morning. Our list of appreciation, of love.
Amongst the milieu of death I have found a new appreciation for life. The last year, which included the death of my beloved Uncle and two babies, has left me with a clarity I cherish beyond words.
I notice everything now. I observe, see, and try my very hardest not to grasp or cling.
I get excited by the budding and blooming of flowers and leaves, I see animals and am deeply grateful for the role they play in our lives and love to see the dogs, cats, birds and deer on my daily walk into work. Watching this joyful spring unfold has been powerful, as the cyclical return to light releases my need to hibernate.
I am in love with the soft rhythm of my week as I start baking and cooking for the week ahead, gathering fresh clean clothes - dissipating with the old in the house and allowing the new to enter. Preparing, creating, nurturing, allowing and being - revelling in the change and space I create.
I deeply cherish the process of transformation, of refinement and growth, as I continually make adjustments to accommodate the new. In the process of learning about fertility alone, we have thrown out plastic and destructive chemicals, we have eschewed sugar, caffeine, processed food and are taking so many supplements that if you shook us we would rattle. We have become healthier... cleaner... willing...
I am so deeply in love with now.
One of my favourite meditations is to become so actively involved with the breath that the process of breathing becomes a love affair. I notice how the breath enters my body in such an intimate way, experiencing me so deeply with such involvement before showing me how important it is that we remain detached from the experience so the breath can leave and then return. I find it overwhelming at times, this finite but beautiful, gorgeous process... forever teaching me something deeper about how we are to experience this gift of being human.
Without the medicine of death, I would not be able to understand life. Without the squeeze and sucker punch of grief, I would not be able to understand the depth and freedom of breath. Without the gift of tears, I would not be able to wash myself clean. I have been emptied and yet I am full.
I am so grateful.
